Buddha Impetus to Primitive Psyche

By Shelton Ranasinghe

This book is an unconventional approach to Buddhist doctrine. It is brilliantly written with logical evaluation of Buddhist concepts with emphasis on suffering and "anatta" (non-self), the two pillars of Buddhist teaching. The author's ability to read the Buddhist scripture and extract what Buddha really meant is the greatest contribution. This Book is a 'must' for anyone with an open mind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shelton Ranasinghe
• Release date: May 31, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452462974

Shelton Ranasinghe

Shelton Ranasinghe is an author and a retired professional engineer. The exposure he acquired living in five continents over a large part of his active working life combined with his interest on human behaviors, has given him a unique and intimate understanding of putting his thoughts into writing on philosophy and science fiction, combining both these streams.“Self A Delusion” - A good read to understand that the self could arise from deluded cognition.“Thinking Explored” - Cleverly explain how thinking process develops from day one.“Are We Being Fooled by our Brains” - Explore the complexity and cunning nature of the brain.“Our Psyche and Beliefs” - Is an idea of how our brains geared to adore beliefs.“Buddha Impetus to Primitive Psyche” - Refreshingly unforced and thought-provoking dissection of Buddhist doctoring.“Our extraterrestrial Neighbors” - Readers will perceive many complex philosophical overtones beyond the Sci-fi content.“The Phone Rang in the Middle of My Shower” - This Sci-fi explores afterlife, along many religious beliefs.“DoooD” - Excellent Sci-fi on Artificial Intelligence.Shelton’s email address: [e-mail]

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Buddha Impetus to Primitive Psyche

By Shelton Ranasinghe

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Contents

Buddhist Notion

Introduction

Physical and Mental Development Process

Human Psyche

Let Us Analyze the Concepts of Buddhist Teachings

Science, Brain and Mind Matter

Question of Buddha After Death

Origination of Faith Concepts

History of Indian Religions

Fundamental Elements of Other Religions

Interpretation of Buddhist Scripture

References

Buddha Impetus to Primitive Psyche

Buddhist notion

(1 Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. Do not dwell in the past; do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

Introduction

We feel good about having answers to questions, whether the answers are real or not. It’s the human nature. To keep our mind-body system in harmony this is necessary. This is specifically important when we encounter question of complex nature where there are no real answers. Most questions related to religions and mystic events are commonly answered backed by vague logic and pseudo reasoning. Each individual has his own recitations in regard to how he or she perceives complex questions associated with religious beliefs. Once a person settles it’s psyche on a comfortable footing on a particular belief system, it is common that person justify his or her stand on these complex questions with reasons based on carefully preserved information and sometimes refers to experience in life that cannot be explained to others . I am not second to this process and hence realized that this essay is biased towards how I perceive things on the context of the Buddha teachings; but throughout this essay I have tried to be very rational and open minded as possible in expressing my ideas. After reading this essay a number of times, I realized that some parts read as extracts from technical papers. I attribute this to my engineering background and the conditioning of my mind to evaluate matters technically. I trust you would find that the excerpts you will read are a fine pool of ideas to clarify many complex topics that would be discussed.

This essay presents my reasoning, evaluation and judgment of some aspects of Buddhism and the way I think how those aspects ought to be interpreted. I assume it is natural that all my interpretations may not agree with the ideas of many others. The facts and logical reasonings that I have presented have gone through many evolutionary and debating processes within my own mind over many years. Having had different opinions on religious dogma at different stages of my life, I have fought many mental battles to bring clarity to the ideas that I have expressed in this essay. Generally, these types of mental battles are common to many of us who seek clarity pertaining to our own beliefs and superstitious ideas. Hence, I hope the ideas that I have expressed will be interested to those who wish to explore different opinions and interpretations of others.

In order to express how our thinking process works, I have used the computer as an analogy to the brain in several phases of this essay. Therefore, at least some fundamental knowledge of computer operation will be helpful to understand the relevant segments and terminology; better. This essay represents quite another rationale of looking at the Buddhist fundamentals, teachings and concepts. In the mid part of the essay, I have explained how to correlate attainment of enlightenment, to the development of a software program in our brain and bringing it up to its full fruition.

Especially, considering the very sensitive nature of our human psyche, I want to state that I am extremely apologetic, if my views cause any discomfort, to any reader. Newspaper and other media reports that I have read and seen as to how people react to free expression of radical ideas on religious concepts, prompted me to include the above statement. Also, the article appeared in the Time Magazine - October 2004 issue, which emphasized on the God Gene innate in the human psyche, was an additional reason that prompted me to address the readers on this. The God Gene article was written by Dr. Dean H Hamer. Dr. Hamer reveals that the inclination toward religious faith is no accident; it is hardwired into our genes. In fact, he argues, spiritual belief offers an indisputable evolutionary advantage, providing humans with a sense of purpose and courage that will help to overcome hardship and loss. As a growing body of evidence suggests, belief also increases our chances of reproductive survival process by helping to reduce stress, overcome anxiety, prevent disease, and extend life.

Physical and Mental Development Processes

I once watched a TV documentary on how we learn to do things and develop our memory process from the time of birth. The program showed how a few months old baby, trying to grasp a colored object that was hanging over the baby’s crib. It showed that the baby with focused eyes on the object was frantically moving both hands, legs, body and head towards the object. The baby was desperately trying to reach the object, but didn’t know how or with what he could get it. However, after struggling for some time the baby managed to touch the object with his right hand. As explained in the TV program, this achievement immediately got stored in the baby’s brain. The baby’s subsequent attempts were more successful, because of the stored information in the memory. After a few minutes, legs or body movements were not seen and approaching the object with the right hand was simple and precise. The narrator used computer terms to explain what happened. She said Now the baby’s brain is properly wired to execute the command to catch the object. All subsequent attempts made by the baby, strengthened the memory wiring process and made the stored memory readily available for his lifetime use. This brought to my mind the importance of learning any activity properly, right from the very beginning. For example, if you want to become a good golfer, it will be paramount to learn your basic techniques right from day one. If you do not get your brain wired correctly at the early stages of life, a lot of re-wiring or corrections will be inevitable at the later stage. Or, perhaps, you may never be able to get it right, if the system is wrongly wired.

By using the computer as an analogy, what occurred in the baby’s brain is really a development of a miniature software program. This example makes us to understand the necessity of establishing a whole lot of small programs (in the brain), to run multiple types of body functions. I presume the "entire software requirement" required for all our physical operations, is built from our infancy in this manner. Whenever a new physical activity is learnt, the necessary elements will be added to the existing programs, similar to software patches we add to the computers. The links and interlinks that are necessary for the complex body operations will be established concurrently with the development of brain programs. This will be an on-going process throughout our life. But, as we reach old, it is possible for some of these programs to get erased thus disabling performance of simple tasks that we could do earlier. Though I have used the phrase entire software requirement for the physical operations, one has to understand that we certainly need to have some basic inbuilt process at birth to initiate or commence the brain’s wiring act. Also, in addition to this it is essential to have capabilities to do a few baby activities just after birth. The built-in capabilities, that we born with are often defined as instincts. Instincts are common to all living organisms. How the instincts are built into our system is not understood. A few good examples of instincts are: 1. An infant’s ability to suck the mother’s nipple just after birth: 2. The ability and knowledge of a baby kangaroo, which is less than an inch long and totally blind at birth, crawling up to the mother’s pouch to suck milk immediately after birth; 3. Baby turtles’ ability to dash towards the sea just after hatching from the eggs, instead of running towards the land; 4. Birds’ abilities to build complex nests exactly as their parents could, without going through any learning process. Beside instincts of this nature, I tend to presume that we also inherit traits such as anger, fear and other emotional feelings of to a certain extent at birth. All these traits are essential elements for our survival. These traits